


Lies

by SgtMac



Category: Batwoman (TV 2019)
Genre: F/F, Kane Twin Drama, Post 1x16, fear toxin, potential alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23373490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SgtMac/pseuds/SgtMac
Summary: In the aftermath of betraying Alice, a shaken Kate finds herself overwhelmed by guilt, entrapped by nightmares and spiraling.
Relationships: Beth Kane | Alice & Kate Kane, Kate Kane/Julia Pennyworth, Kate Kane/Sophie Moore
Comments: 6
Kudos: 88





	Lies

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of a psychological study of Kate's muddled headspace as she has to come to terms with betraying her sister knowing what she would go through, thanks to her fear of herself. In the comics, Kate struggled with multiple vices - alcoholism being a major one - were detrimental to her. On the show, we're seeing a thread of that. 
> 
> This is not an especially romantic piece, but it does have slight romantic nods to both of Kate's current two ladies.
> 
> Would love to hear your thoughts! Enjoy!

She probably had this coming, she thinks, wincing against the lancing pain of multiple broken ribs. She knows with startling clarity that she most certainly should have seen it coming.

And yet, she still feels a rush of heartbroken surprise and even betrayal and if that isn’t the most absurd thing ever considering that she’d been the one to betray Alice first.

She’d been the one to lock her sister away in Arkham, hoping to throw away the key.

But Alice had found a key, and now here Kate is. On the floor of an abandoned office building in Old Town, broken planks of wood beneath her thanks to the rotted floor she’d fallen through.

No, not fallen – been pushed through by an unseen shove from Mouse, her tumble intended.

Her wounding planned.

It’s surprising only in that Alice had previously gone to great lengths to protect her even as she had tried to turn her in circles, but then loyalties tend to bend and break after a betrayal.

Kate coughs violently, her body shuddering fiercely enough to practically bow it from the ground. It’s hard to tell what else besides her ribs are broken, but everything feels like it’s on fire including her head, a jagged cut running from just above her eye to her jawline, blood spiking her short hair. Moving seems nearly impossible, an unfortunate state considering her immense vulnerability, laid out here on the floor like a prey waiting for a predator to strike.

She’s never really thought of herself as a prey before – has always been strong enough to be the hunter instead of the hunted, but her body hurts, and her head is pounding, and every attempt she makes at moving even just a little just sends more pain crashing through her.

So, she waits and -

She hears footsteps, then, delicate for a couple, and then stomping to get her attention. She drags her eyes up, and looks into the pale eyes of her sister, the dark shadows marring them a tale of the torment she’s been going through in Arkham. She looks thinner, her hair stringier.

“My dear sister, Kate,” Alice bites out. “What a terrible rabbit hole you’ve fallen down.” She leans in as if to inspect the damage, gingerly moving aside the fabric of Kate’s hoodie to inspect the wounds there, her fingers trailing over a long gash on her abdomen which is leaking blood. The bruising is worse, though – the intense amount of color already there showing off the breaks of Kate’s bones. Alice frowns, seemingly almost unnerved by the degree of damage.

“If you’re going to kill me, just do it and get it over with,” Kate gasps out, drawing Alice’s attention back upwards to her sisters’ watery eyes.

Alice slaps her hand against her chest dramatically. “Me? Kill you? Kate, _I’d_ never hurt _you_.”

Kate coughs again, her eyes closing for a moment as she absorbs another wash of pain.

“Oh, right, the fall,” Alice allows, waving her hand down at her sister, indicating towards her injuries. “Well, I am an escaped supervillain from Arkham, and you are a great hero. Right?”

“Alice –“

“Gotham’s paragon of courage and righteousness who kills in cold blood and betrays her twin sister. Not once. Not twice. But three different times. That’s quite a wondrous amount for a hero, Kate.” She sighs dramatically. “I’m sure you understand why I needed to take you out of commission; I’m really not in the mood for our usual throwdown fight tonight. Though I must admit, we expected you to be wearing your flying rodent armor. Bit arrogant of you not to.”

Not arrogance, more like recklessness. Which has kind of been her MO for the last few months.

Probably explains why she’s here now, her brain a bit too foggy with pain to remember exactly what had led her to this place besides knowing that it would be where Alice would be waiting for her. Somehow, after finding out that Alice and Mouse had escaped, she’d just known.

Just as Alice had known that Kate would come for her here.

Likely alone, and without sensible backup, and well, that’s probably the arrogance of being Batwoman. Regardless, she’d no doubt banked on the belief that Kate would remember this very old, now dilapidated and rapidly crumbling building she and Beth had played in as young children. Back then, the once impressive steel structure had belonged to their Aunt Martha.

Seems Alice had correctly counted on Kate’s impulsiveness, but not her recklessness.

But then, Alice hasn’t really been around for the last few months of spiral.

Hasn’t seen just how many different ways her sister has tried to forget about her choices.

Which, Kate thinks grimly, brings her back full circle to this nightmare of a situation.

Bones broken, confidence shattered and at the mercy of a sister hellbent on revenge.

Revenge she’s probably entitled to, Kate allows.

“Where’s Mouse?” she finally manages, because dwelling within her own mind is pointless.

She’s been doing it for months, trying to work through this, and gotten nowhere.

“Hm? Oh. Getting what we need for you. We’ve put together quite the familiar surprise for you.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Let you see my hell,” Alice promises and then leans in, so very close to her sister. “You shouldn’t have left me there. You knew what it would do to me. What they would. And I begged you not to. After everything you know I went through. I begged you not to do that to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” Alice dismisses as she stands back up and starts pacing back and forth, twirling her butterfly knife as she does, the motion of it nearly dizzying. “You still believe that you’re better than me, don’t you, Kate? You still don’t think you’re the same killer that I am. You think that just because yours is one and mine is many that your hands are clean and mine will always be dirty.”

“I don’t think –“

“Then you shouldn’t talk,” Alice hisses, snapping around, her bruised eyes glittering with fury.

“Alice,” a quiet voice says from behind her. “It’s ready.”

That brings a savage smile to her face, as she peers down at her wounded sister. “But don’t worry, soon you won’t be talking at all. Soon, you’ll just be screaming. Like I was. Like I have been ever since you left me in Arkham. You know, I thought nothing could be worse than what the Queen of Hearts did to me, but those…doctors –“ she spits the word. “And you let them.”

She steps aside, then, allowing Mouse to step forward. He looks different, too – his physicality bizarrely not showing the same intense trauma of months of incarceration at Arkham, but rather a sadistic madness which looks almost natural on him. Almost healthy and peaceful.

Still, it’s not his face which draws Kate’s attention to him, but rather the metal tank he’s pulling along after him, a mask settled in his hands. Her eyes flicker to the symbol on the side.

Jonathan Crane’s chosen symbol for the Scarecrow’s infamous fear toxin.

"I see you remember what this is," Alice grins, her eyes dancing with madness. "I have to admit, it's quite unpleasant. It claws out the deepest fears within you. The ghosts you can't seem to destroy no matter how hard you try. For me, it was the fear of you abandoning me. Turns out that was just reality. What will your greatest fear be, Kate?"

“Alice, no,” Kate protests, looking for a way to get away, knowing she has nowhere to go.

Her body is too hurt, her spirit too bruised, and help won’t be coming anytime soon.

Oh sure, eventually the Crows will settle on this building, but it’ll take them time, because all of Old Town is in this state of decay and Jacob had rarely known about the play haunts of his girls.

So…eventually, but not before the damage is done, she knows.

And she knows this because ever since the day she’d left Alice in that cell, she’s been reading up on the toxin, trying to convince herself that it had exaggerated the worst of Alice’s fears, and that what she had done to her sister hadn’t been quite the betrayal her heart knows it to be.

Countless bottles of liquor and a handful of one-night stands haven’t chased that truth away.

Because the truth is that this toxin is every bit the horror show Alice had told her it was. Yes, it provides a brutally exaggerated retelling of the worst of terrors, for sure, but in that distortion is still a damning mirror onto the reality of them. A reality she’s about to experience first-hand.

A reality she wonders if she’s even less equipped to handle than Alice was.

“Daddy saved me last time,” Alice says thoughtfully. “I’m sure he’ll come for you at some point. But what will he find left of his favorite daughter? The one he hasn’t thrown away like trash.”

“We should do this. Pay her back for what she did to you,” Mouse declares, sounding both impatient and unnervingly calm all at once. He gazes down at Kate, the smallest quirk to his lip, like he thinks that he’s finally about to win some great battle. Probably the one for Alice’s soul.

A battle she’d surrendered the moment she’d left Alice in that cell.

Alice smiles tightly. “He really doesn’t like you, Kate. He’s never liked you. I probably should have listened to him when he told me not to trust you. Would have saved us both a lot of pain. Oh well, on with the show."

“Don’t do this,” Kate whispers, trying to breathe through the panic and pain she feels.

A caustic laugh greets her words. “Don’t do this? Why shouldn’t I? When I begged you not to leave me there, you did. You left me to be tortured and destroyed all over again. You let me be hurt. My own twin sister. Well, now dear Kate, you’re going to get to feel what it’s like when someone who is supposed to be the one person you can always trust betrays you. Repeatedly.”

She nods to Mouse, then, and steps away, watching with those dark bruised eyes as Mouse climbs over Kate, grinning when she cries out at the pressure against her ribs. Oh, she tries to struggle, and even gets a hit or two in, but he’s stronger right now, and easily overpowers her.

It’s deeply unfortunate, then, that she’s about to be doused with fear toxin considering the intense fear she already feels.

“Happy dreams, sweet Kate,” Alice intones as he presses the mask to her face, the hiss of the tank sounding just seconds before the toxin seeps into her lungs, its effect almost immediate.

The room distorts – her reality crumbles apart and every failure stands above her.

Beth at twelve, a car crashing over the edge, her fading voice calling for Kate to save her.

The alternate version of Beth at twenty-eight, her body laid out on a slab in the morgue.

And Alice. Her Beth, the one she hadn’t been able to save and has never been able to save. Now so twisted and damaged, a cell door slamming as she pleads for Kate not to leave her.Not to abandon her. Again.

“But you will,” August Cartwright says from her side. “You always do.”

“You failed her, you’re going to fail us,” Luke tells her, walking towards her, shaking his head.

“You can’t save any of us,” Mary states, and she wonders where they all came from. As Mary approaches, she begins to cough, her body seizing and shuddering like she’s been poisoned.

From the edges of the room, her father appears, Catherine Hamilton right next to him, her eyes empty sockets, her hair dirty from the ground. They approach, gravely, staring coldly at her.

And then there’s Bruce. Looking disappointed in her, like he knows what she’s become.

“You can’t even save yourself.”

The other Bruce behind her, his mechanical body creaking, the burns on his face from his electrocution glistening, “You killed a man because you lost control of your rage. You're the monster now. No better than me. I told you there was no hope. You should have listened. Instead, you’ll die like my Kate did. Foolish and broken.”

The Beth on the slab sits up, motions to Alice, and says, “You’re no better than Alice.”

They all step towards her, then, crowding her. Closing over her. Grasping at her.

Her Alice, from above her, says quietly, “You shouldn’t have betrayed me, Kate.”

“I’m sorry,” Kate whispers, just before all of her demons fall upon her.

“I know,” Alice answers, and then steps back, her eyes hard as she watches Kate thrash.

Screaming, screaming, screaming…

* * *

She’s still screaming when she jerks forward in her bed, nearly throwing herself from it, her heart slamming against her chest. Gasping, Kate looks around her, taking in the walls of her massive penthouse, the gleaming windows of it looking out from high up above her city.

She drops her hands down to touch her body, to feel for wounds.

All she feels is unbroken bare skin, the bones beneath her flesh still whole. She reaches up towards her scalp, that there’s no cut there, no indication that she’d been actually injured.

“Just a dream,” she mutters to herself, trying to ignore the tears she feels on her cheeks.

Because it’d been more a nightmare than a dream.

Hardly the first one she’s had since that night at Arkham.

Probably not the last one, either.

Hands trembling, she picks up her cell, ignoring the badges telling her she has six voicemail messages and twenty text messages she hasn’t answered; they’re from Mary and Sophie and Julia and her even her father and they all ask the same thing, “Are you all right, Kate?”

Mary and Sophie don’t know the truth, and she plans to never tell them, wondering how they would look at her, and what they would see in her if they knew what she was capable of. It's one of the reasons she's lied to both of them about her alter-ego, wanting to keep both of them safe from the darkness her chosen world brings in.

Julia and her father know about both Cartwright’s murder and betraying Alice at Arkham, but somehow their casual easy understanding is just as bad. Maybe even worse, because Kate doesn’t understand any of this and months of desperately trying to rationalize it all away as just something that she’d had to do have left her still scrambling to find peace with her choices.

There are other calls from Luke, business first, and then concern. Even now, the two of them filling out the boundaries of their still young partnership in Bruce's world.

Sighing, knowing that she won’t answer any of the voicemails (because what could she say to her friends and family who have worried so much about her, but often without knowing what it is keeping her awake at night) , but needing to get information to confirm or refute the fear she has of her nightmare coming true, she shoots a text to Luke:

**IS ALICE STILL IN ARKHAM?**

Five minutes pass. Long enough for her to stand – and still naked – walk over to her bar. She pours herself three fingers of scotch, and downs it while she waits, then pours another glass. Deep down she knows the amount of drinking she’s been doing as of late is a problem, but right now she’s just trying to chase the demons away, and she’s willing to do it however she can.

Her phone buzzes and she almost drops the now empty glass.

_HEY. THERE YOU ARE.WE’VE BEEN WORRIED._

Kate frowns, then types:

**DON’T BE. WHAT ABOUT ALICE?**

It’s dismissive, clear in indicating her disinterest in talking. Thankfully, Luke is the one member of her circle actually able and willing to pick up on hints to change the subject as requested. He's the one member of the team (and not-team) who seems to want to keep as much closed off within himself as she wants to keep within her.

_SHE’S STILL THERE. WHY?_

**JUST MAKING SURE.**

_WHY? DID SOMETHING HAPPEN? ARE YOU OKAY?_

She pours another drink. Maybe it’ll help her sleep without more dreams. So far, it hasn’t, but she figures eventually, the exhaustion and alcohol will do the trick.

**I’M FINE. I'LL CHECK IN TOMORROW.**

She’s not fine, she knows this; she’s miles from fine, and has no clue how to get back to it.

How to make sense of a thousand conflicting feelings and responsibilities.

As Kate Kane, the twin sister. As Batwoman, Gotham’s hero and enforcer.

Her breath dragging, she closes her eyes and sees Beth and her mother, just moments before the car had plunged into the river, the sound of bending metal snapping her life just as horribly.

And then there’s Cartwright, bloody and grinning at her, dirt from his burial on his cheeks.

Alice in front of him, only she’s Beth and she’s twelve and –

Kate downs the rest of the glass and then throws it, the glass shattering against the wall, the remaining drops of liquor streaking down towards the ground, onto the carpet.

She drops to her knees, crumbling beneath the guilt and grief of the last several months.

Crisis. Beth. Cartwright. Alice.

God, _Alice_.

The sound of her fists slamming against the door, pleading for Kate not to leave her again.

The memory of that sound is all it takes for the sobs to start. Harsh, wracking, consuming.

Until exhaustion overtakes her and all she can do is stare up at the ceiling above her.

Finally, after an eternity, she sits up, knees to her bare chest, and reaches for her phone.

She finds Sophie’s name and types:

**I NEED A FAVOR.**

Sophie’s answer is immediate, even though it’s the middle of the night.

_ANYTHING._

She smiles grimly, feeling the weight of another relationship full of lies.

The shadowy memory of kisses shared on a rooftop an eternity ago still haunting her.

A minute passes, then another, the alcohol in her system swirling with the overwhelming emotions which are nearly choking her. Everything rising up in her, suffocating her.

_KATE? WHAT’S WRONG?_

Back to the present, then. Back to the now. Kate chews her lip, thinks of the words she'd typed before and not sent ( _I just need someone_ ), and instead types:

 **I NEED TO SEE ALICE**.

* * *

“Any chance you’ll tell me what’s going on with you?” Sophie asks, glancing over at a slumped Kate, even as she keeps one eye on the dark winding road which leads up to Arkham Asylum.

“What?”

Seeming somewhat unsure, Sophie ventures, “It’s just, you’ve been…distracted lately.”

“Have I? Just a lot on my mind.”

“Alice?”

No real point in denying it. “I just need to see her and make sure she’s okay,” Kate replies as she glances out the window.

“Is anyone okay at Arkham?”

Kate doesn’t answer that, just keeps staring out the window, watching the dark trees which line the road curling inwards, their branches appearing talons. To her tired and haunted mind, they’re almost like visuals stripped straight out of a Jonathan Crane style nightmare.

“Kate –“

“I’m fine,” Kate answers quickly, automatically.

“You know…you can talk to me if you’re not, right?” Sophie asks, a hand sliding over to take one of Kate’s, fingers weaving between hers. When Kate doesn’t squeeze back, Sophie does. “Hey, what happened with Alice? You tried, Kate. You tried so hard to save her. This isn’t your fault.”

Kate finally looks over at her, exhausted and muddled. “I just need to see her,” she says again.

It doesn’t escape Sophie’s notice that even as dismissive as Kate’s words are of her own, she doesn’t pull her hand away from the comfort being offered there. The connection being given.

It’s not much, Sophie thinks, but it’s still something.

* * *

“I was sleeping,” Alice comments as she’s brought into the room. It’s two in the morning, and this shouldn’t be happening, but Sophie has connections and as long as no one rats them out to Jacob, well then no one who matters will ever need to know about this late-night discussion.

“So was I,” Kate comments, leaning forward across the table to examine her sister. She sees the same gauntness from her dream, the same bruising around her eyes and the fraying of her hair.

“So why are you here, then? Came to gloat? Convince yourself how much I deserve this.”

“No. I just…I had a…nightmare. I just…wanted to see how you are?”

Alice laughs bitterly, a hint of madness in her tone. “How I am? Because you slept poorly, _now_ you care? ” She glances towards the heavy metal door. “Who’s on the other side, Kate? Daddy or…your beloved Sophie. No, not Daddy. He’d be in here with you looking at me like he wishes I was dead. So, it must be sweet confused Sophie. How are things with her, anyway? Have you finally gotten beyond the whole creature of the night act with her? Or are you still living a lie? A very creepy lie –“

“Shut up.”

“I thought you wanted to see how I am?” She leans in. “We are sisters, Kate. We should be able to talk about our lovers. Like sisters do. Wait, my sister abandoned me. Left me to die. To rot. Repeatedly. Guess I’ll have to talk to the guards about my lovers. Between electrocutions.”

Kate swallows hard. “They’re hurting you?” Her voice quiet, thin, close to breaking.

“What did you expect would happen? I told you what they’d do to me. _I told you.”_

“I –“

“Chose not to believe me. Chose to believe I was something you could just forget. Not even a person, just the villain that you could walk away from. Do you feel like the hero now, Kate?”

“I can’t forget you, “Kate admits. “It’d be easier if I could, but I can’t.”

“Good. Good! Abandoning your twin sister who trusted _you_ after _you_ twice left her to die shouldn’t be easy and if you want _me_ to cry for you…”

“I don’t. I just –“

“I don’t care,” Alice growls, and then she’s hitting her cuffs against the table. “Sophie!”

“Alice, wait.”

“Sophie! I’d like to go back to my hotel room now, dear. This reunion doesn’t interest me.”

“Beth.”

Alice turns at that, for a moment too surprised to reply.

And in that moment, they both just look at each other.

Madness and grief and guilt and turmoil coming together.

So much sadness and longing for what could have been, should have been.

Alice tilts her head and says, “You look terrible, little sister.”

And it’s the strangest of moments because Alice is the one who has been locked away in a room without light, the only air she receives pumped in through vents high on the ceiling. She’s the one who looks gaunt and distinctly unhealthy, and yet in this moment, she’s sharp and aware.

But then Alice adds, “You smell like…alcohol. What would your precious city think if they knew that Batwoman was a drunk.” She sings the last word out, seemingly savagely victorious. Like the realization of how much Kate is struggling with all of this is some kind of pyrrhic victory.

“I’m not.” Kate frowns, then. “Why haven’t you told anyone about…about me?”

“You mean about your creepy night habit of dressing like a flying rodent and gaily hopping from building to building trying to stop all the supervillains like a proper righteous superhero?”

Kate just stares back at her, too tired to play Alice’s game.

Alice sighs dramatically. “Because you’re my sister, Kate. I would never betray you.”

“That’s not –“

The door opens, interrupting her.

“We done in here?” Sophie asks, entering with two guards right behind her.

“We won’t ever be done,” Alice replies, and then holds out her hands to the guards.

“No,” Kate says softly, looking down at her own hands.

Alice takes two steps forward, then stops and says over her shoulder, “Oh. And Kate?”

Kate looks up at her, her expression bland as she tries to ram all of her feelings back inside.

“Sweet dreams.”

* * *

She’s sitting on the hood of a burnt-out car in the middle of Old Town, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in her hand and snowflakes floating into her dark hair, when she hears the sound of boots crunching against the nearby ice.

“It’s getting to be something of an unsettling normal finding you half-drunk in the strangest of places,” Julia notes as she approaches. When Kate lifts an eyebrow in silent question, she adds, “Sophie texted me to let me know what happened tonight. Thought maybe I could find you.”

“And you have.” Kate shakes her head. “She shouldn’t have told you.”

“She’s in love with you.”

“She shouldn’t be.”

“From experience, I’m not sure that’s an entirely controllable thing,” Julia responds, sitting next to her. She smiles at the look of uncomfortable surprise Kate gives her, then winks to play it off.

Because all of this is far too messy already.

“What else did Sophie tell you that she shouldn’t have?”

“That you went to see Alice tonight. And then took off right afterwards. She’s worried. All of your friends are. I am."

“How did you find me?”

“Luke did. There’s a tracker in your jacket.”

Kate looks down at the leather jacket she’s wearing. “There is?”

Julia chuckles. Then, growing serious, “What’s bothering you enough to have you drinking out in the middle of Old Town at four in the morning? Just the talk with Alice?”

Kate motions behind her. “You see that building there?” Off Julia’s nod, she continues, “When we were kids, Beth and I used to play in it. It belonged to my Aunt Martha. She did a lot of R&D from it until they bought a new building for Wayne Enterprises downtown. I have so many good memories of the two of us running through the halls, hiding on different floors. My aunt would often let us play with the new tech.” She smiles. “My dad hated it, but he always gave in to my aunt. She was his beloved big sister and she had him wrapped around her finger.”

“Okay?”

“I always gave in to Beth, too.”

“Kate –“

“They’re hurting her there. Torturing her. She told me they would. I chose not to believe her.”

“It’s Arkham Asylum, love; home of the city's most horrific monsters. They do what they must to keep the people of Gotham safe just as we do. Sometimes, we sleep poorly so that others can sleep well. It’s the job.”

“My sister –“

“Is your greatest weakness. Always has been. Even when you didn't know she was alive."

Kate doesn’t respond to that, just brings the bottle to her lips.

“You have to let her go or she’s going to destroy you. Heart and soul."

“I can’t.” She taps her head. “I think she’s in here. And in my dreams. Every time I close my eyes, every time I fall asleep, she’s in there. She hates me. And I think I deserve it.”

“Kate,” Julia says, reaching out and taking the bottle from her, and putting it down on the ground. She takes Kate’s hands in hers, and then waits until Kate is looking at her. “I know you’re still trying to work your way through what happened with Cartwright and Alice, but you have a responsibility to the people of this city. They believe in you and they trust you.”

“They shouldn’t.”

“Because you don’t trust yourself?”

“Because I don’t trust myself,” Kate echoes.

“You did what had to be done. Sometimes the right thing is –“

“The hard thing. I know. I’ve heard it. And I keep telling myself that, too. I keep telling myself that I did what I had to do to stop Cartwright. To stop Alice. Righteous makes right, right?”

“Cartwright isn’t worth what you’re putting yourself through. He was a monster who deserved worse than what you did to him. It may not have been Bruce’s way to kill, but –“ she shrugs.

“What?” Kate prompts.

“I don’t know what made Bruce leave Gotham – I don’t know why he’s stayed away so long - but I do know he suffered terrible losses along the way. Too many of them. Some of them at the hands of the bastards he let live because of his no-kill code. It’s not my place to judge him or decide whether his code was right or wrong, but…wouldn’t the world have been better without the Joker in it?”

“And Alice? Is the world better without her in it?”

“Not my place to say, but…what I do know is your job – the one you chose to take on when you put on the suit - is to protect good people from bad people. Even if that person is your sister.”

“We both know it’s not that simple. And we both know how thin the line is between –“

“You _are_ a good person, Kate Kane,” Julia says emphatically. She reaches her hands up, cupping Kate’s face, and then drawing them close together, close enough to kiss if they wanted to.

They hold like that, eyes locked, Kate trying to take of the strength and faith being offered.

But then Kate is pulling away and standing up so she can pace a few feet away, her eyes on the old building. “I always thought so. But I think maybe Alice was right about me. Which means I betrayed my sister – again – just to prove something to myself that was always wrong.”

“Seems you’re at bit of an impasse with all of this noise in your head. Alice in Arkham; breaking her out of there will lead to more innocents suffering. Leaving her there leads to her suffering. By your definition, you’re a villain no matter what you do. So, what now what?” Julia asks.

Kate reaches down and picks up the bottle. “I wish to hell I knew.” She turns and starts to walk away, throwing back over her shoulder, “Tell Sophie, Luke, Mary, whoever’s worried: I’m fine.” 

“But that’d be a lie.”

“I’m good at lies,” Kate answers quietly, and then walks away.

* * *

She’s on the ground in the dilapidated building once more, her body broken and tears in her eyes. In just a few minutes, she’ll wake up screaming again, realizing it was all just another nightmare. Understanding even as her heart pounds that it’s her troubled mind trying to figure its way through the mess which is her conscience and putting her through hell while doing it.

For now, though, she’s staring up at Alice, and into her sisters’ angry eyes.

“You’re falling, Kate,” she murmurs. “Not much further to fall.”

“Are you sure?” Kate asks, because she’s tired. So goddamned tired.

“’But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!’” 

“I don’t understand.”

Alice bends down, then, a hand to Kate’s face, the touch almost soothing and gentle, no malice evident. “You try so hard to be everything for everyone. Kate for your family. Batwoman for your city. The perfect daughter. The perfect hero. But what are you really? Who are you?”

“I don’t know,” Kate admits.

Alice frowns, and then sits fully beside her. “When’s the last time you slept through a night? Without me swimming around in your head? When’s the last time you didn’t drink yourself into unconsciousness? Or go looking for someone to distract you by keeping your bed warm?”

“I don’t know,” Kate says again.

“Mmm. Kate, why do you always dream about me hurting you? Don't you think that's a little bit bent even for someone who dresses like a bat?"

“I think maybe I deserve it.”

“To be hurt? Like you think maybe I’m being hurt?”

Kate doesn’t reply to that, just stares up at the broken ceiling above her.

Thinking about the youthful laughter which had once boomed off the walls of this building.

“You’re going to have to forgive yourself,” Alice tells her. “Or don’t and you and I can see each other every night after you pass out. I’m not sure your liver can handle that plan, but well…”

“Since you have all the answers, how do I forgive myself?”

Alice shrugs. “How would I know? I’m just your own head trying to give you free therapy, Kate.” She places her hand next to her mouth and whispers, “Maybe next time try a professional.”

“I don’t know how to fix any of this,” Kate murmurs.

“I’m not sure that you can. So, you do what I’ve never been able to do and just move on. Do what all heroes do and rationalize away the hard choices you have to make in the name of the bigger good. Tell yourself you did what you had to do, and Gotham is safer for it. Sleep soundly.”

“I’m not sure I can do that, either.”

“I know,” Alice says sympathetically, her hand once again touching Kate. And abruptly, she’s clapping her hands and jumping back to her feet. “But you had better figure it out quickly, because otherwise your chosen form of self-torture is likely to drive you absolutely _mad_.”

She snaps her fingers, and then there’s Mouse wheeling the tank with the toxin in again.

“I don’t want to do this again,” Kate pleads, but her voice is quiet, resigned.

“Then stop doing it,” Alice tells her, her voice emphatic, and then she nods to Mouse.

Who straps the mask over Kate’s face, grinning down at her as she thrashes and tries to escape.

All the while knowing that there’s nowhere to escape to.

Knowing that the only way to stop this madness is to face herself and decide who she has become.

One way or another.

_**-Fin** _


End file.
